


blood bonds

by carnivorousBelvedere



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Egypt, Egyptology, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fever Dreams, Forced Arousal, Forced Orgasm, M/M, Old Gods, Ownership, Professor Dave, Ritual Public Sex, Rituals, Tattoos, Variations on Ancient Egyptian Religion, all this for a ritual sex scene i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-01-14 21:52:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18485101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnivorousBelvedere/pseuds/carnivorousBelvedere
Summary: After being the first to discover the temple of a long-lost Egyptian god, Dave tattoos the god's symbol to his back.Shit starts to get weird after that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notwest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notwest/gifts).



Dave will never forget the first time he saw a sarcophagus.

He was fascinated by it. He loved the intricate workings in the stone, the restored gold, aquamarine and crimson details, the unique artwork of the little animal-like figures. 

He would drag Bro to take him on the weekends and he would browse the same exhibit at their local Museum of Natural History again and again. 

Then the field trip happened.

There was a special traveling ancient Egypt exhibit coming to his city. He ran home to Bro with the permission slip, who signed it at the kitchen table, shaking his head with bemused affection. 

“Careful, little man. Get too close to those old things and you’ll get a curse!” 

Dave scoffed. “That only happens when you open the coffin yourself!” 

Bro had grinned at him, ruffled his hair. “Well if there was one to ever do that, it’d be you.” 

Maybe one day, Dave dreamed. 

-

Dave had no clue there were so many gods. Yeah he’d heard of the big ones- Nun, Amun-Ra, Sehkmet, Horus… but this was on another level. 

Eyes wide as could be, he walked through the exhibit, greedily eyeing up each case and the new information within. 

His eyes flicked over it at first, before stilling and zoning in on it. It was a strange statuette that appeared like a crab for a head. It had bright, piercing red eyes. 

Red eyes like Dave had. 

He quickly stumbled forward to read the information plaque below, pushing up his sunglasses.

_Karkata/Vantas: A mysterious god! Not much is known about him. He was considered to be the god of blood, passion, bonds, and virility. He was thought to be in close contact with Khepri, the scarab beetle god of immortality._

_It was said that his red eyes were deadly, and anyone that made eye contact with the god would be driven to immediate insanity, or even death._

 

‘Whoa,’ Dave thought. ‘Red eyes. He was just like me.’ 

 

Later he’d go home and Bro would heat him up some chicken nuggets and between mouthfuls he would excitedly talk of the god with red eyes. 

-

“Ray-Ray, holy shit, I think we almost found it,” Dave giggles with excitement. He’s covered from head to toe in dust and grime. In his hands are the brushes he’s carefully using to rub away years of dirt. Nervously, he wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist

He’s not sweating because of the heat outside. They are too far underground, and it’s surprisingly cool and dank down here in the dig site. 

Dave is sweating because he’s _nervous_. It’s a wonder none of it has dripped and stung his eyes. 

_Twenty-seven and making the find of a lifetime,_ he thinks. _Take that professor Rodgers, you can suck my big, fat… discovery._

Eight years. 

It had taken him eight long years to earn his Egyptology PhD, going straight through college to his doctoral program, writing his dissertation on the god that started it all: _Karkata_. 

The god whose temple he was about to uncover, the first and only of its kind. 

It had been tough getting the research grant for his postdoc, but he petitioned long and hard through his alma mater, Brown, to get it. 

And now he was _here_. He was… he was doing it. Original research, finding relics no one had ever laid eyes on, that no museum had claim to. 

He’d spent years triangulating the location of the sole temple of Karkata on the shores of the Nile. 

He was so close, now. Only a few more broad brush strokes and he’d finally uncover it. 

“Dave, stop calling me that,” his undergrad assistant whines. 

“Shh, get the light. Come on, hurry. This is it,” Dave enthuses, not even bothering to obnoxiously correct her on calling him ‘Dr. Strider’, not ‘Dave’. 

With a grumble Aradia brings the tripod bearing the large light forward. She obviously wants to go home. He can’t blame her, they should have finished for the day, but Dave couldn’t stop. Not when he knew he was so close. He’d promised her beers and a week of free dinner when they finished. She’d still doubted they would get deep enough, but went along with it anyways. 

He strokes once, twice, and starts to make out the red pigment below. He’s hit with a rush of adrenaline. Aradia, for all her complaining, gasps besides him in shock. 

Dave looks at her and grins exuberantly. She returns one just as excited. 

“Keep going,” she urges in a whisper, nodding at the wall. 

They continue on like that, brushing the dirt away to reveal it- the large block of stone bearing the sigil of Karkata, the sacred symbol of the blood god. 

It’s almost entirely uncovered when he leans back and starts laughing. 

“I found it,” Dave breathes, his shoulders shaking with delirious wonder. 

“ _I found it_.” 

 

-

 

Dave takes a ton of photos. He’ll cut this out of the wall and return to the US for a research grant extension, and then as soon as he’s got that approved (which he will, especially with how he struck gold here) he can return to the dig site and maybe uncover the entire _temple_. 

His child self would be squealing with excitement and hopefully not peeing himself. 

By the next afternoon the sigil has been excised and boxed for travel. He and Aradia and the rest of his dig team drink Luxor beers over a fire by the packaged crates on the Nile shore, swatting flies away in the dying heat. 

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Dave pokes at her. 

“Shut the fuck up. We’re not in the US, _Doctor_ ,” she shoots back at him to laughs of the team.

“Oh, right,” Dave laughs, still too high off his win to care about the unworldly err. 

A stranger is determinedly crossing the sandbank, heading straight towards them, and one of the team members gestures at the nearing figure. Alarmed, Dave stands up to look. They watch the man approach, reeds swaying in the background. 

“You’ll make the god angry!” The man in the dark traditional galabeya says. In the dusky sunset it’s hard to make out his other features. “You need to stop!” 

“Hey, you can’t be here,” one of Dave’s associates so helpfully pipes up. 

“Don’t worry,” Dave calls out to them, more loudly. “We’re leaving tomorrow!” He lifts his beer in the direction of the man. 

The stranger stops. “It’s too late. The god is already angered.” 

Dave returns to his seat, choosing to ignore the obviously crazy stranger. He floats around for a little bit, watching the group of them drink, before fading away, probably back to the city. 

“Pfft, hundreds of years digging in Egypt, ain’t noone cursed yet,” Dave comments when he’s sure they’re gone. 

“Do professors at Brown have Southern accents?” Aradia says, an aside. 

“Watch your explicit bias there, dear,” Dave mutters under his breath, taking another sip of beer and looking into the fire. 

_Get at me, angry god_ , he muses. _Show me what you got._

 

-

Dave sends pictures of the sigil to all his family and friends, almost to an obnoxious point. 

Bro sends back a proud _I knew you would do it_ that leaves a smile of Dave’s face for hours on end. Jade sends an entire message of exclamation points. 

He sends professor Rodgers three copies- one in the mail, one by email, and one by text message. 

Dave tells himself it’s the professional, totally not petty, thing to do. 

 

There’s a small party on the Brown campus when he returns. He shakes hands with fellow adjunct faculty, takes pictures with his team, their hands full of champagne glasses. 

He finds himself standing in front of the block of stone, sighing happily. 

“Dr. Strider!” One of the professors says to him, coming to stand at his side while Dave looks longingly at his find. “What’s the plan now? Going to Disneyland?” 

Dave laughs. “No,” he says. “I’m getting a tattoo.” 

“That’s unconventional,” they comment.

Dave only grins.

Now he’s just got to find someone that can replicate the thing and put it on his back. 

 

“What is this again?” The artist asks him as they begin sketches. 

“Oh, it’s a sigil. Symbols were really important to ancient Egyptians, all the cults had an important one. Like everyone knows the ankh or eye of Horus, right?” Dave starts to explain excitedly but the artist’s eyes immediately glaze over. Right, normal people don’t get boners over this stuff like he does. “... anyways, this is a symbol of one such god and his cult.”

“What god? Never seen anything like this.”

“ _Karkata_. He was the god of blood and passion.”

“Passion? What, like sex?”

Dave grins. “Not exactly. Though, I have yet to find out.” When he uncovers the rest of the temple on his return trip, he’ll determine just how far his followers went for his _passion_.

 

The tattoo takes one half day session, although the artist originally thought it would take two.

 _Fuck my loans, totally worth it,_ Dave tells himself.

His artist is _sweating_ as he works. 

“Everything okay?” Dave asks at one point.

The artist wipes their forehead. “Yeah, jeez, this one is just… kind of a lot. But we’re gonna finish it today, I can feel it.” 

He’s finally home later, looking over his shoulder at the image on his irritated skin. 

It’s bizarre, and it really must just be the endorphins of the process, but Dave feels almost as if there’s energy coming off of it. It must just be his blood, running hot under the broken skin. 

He takes time to examine how different it looks on his body- the bright red of the blood dripping out, the black of the claws, the clean lines of the Egyptian god’s letters. 

It looks like victory to him.

 

That night he falls asleep on his stomach, and dreams of a massive, formless being, so big he can’t fathom it, sitting on his back. It feels him, running shapeless limbs down his arms and legs. 

That’s not the weirdest part. He starts to feel… warm. A slow heat turns up in his stomach. He grinds his hips down on his bed as he sleeps, gasping for air as the pressure bears down on him. He feels _good_ but fuck, it’s getting so hot, almost burning. 

It all has the fuzzy tinge of a sex dream, while at the same time being nothing like one. It’s more a feeling, he’s not seeing anything, he just feels compelled to do… something. 

_Dave_.

His eyes fly open. 

Dave finds himself covered in sweat, his mouth dry, and dick hard as a rock.

That must have been a weird fucking dream. He can’t remember the last time he slept like that, waking up with such an inexplicable hunger. 

The skin on his back itches, and he fights the urge to scratch at it. 

He pulls himself to his feet and stumbles to the bathroom, where he begrudgingly turns on the light. His sensitive red eyes react immediately, pupils constricting. He squeezes his lids shut as they painfully respond to the sudden brightness and finds his way to the sink where he splashes water on his face. He forces his eyes open long enough to find the glass on his counter and fill it with water. 

Chugging that down does nothing to dull the steady ache in his abdomen. 

His back stings, almost like he’s got a sunburn. He can’t touch it, dammit. It has to heal flawlessly. 

He leans over the sink and stares at himself- red eyes starkly piercing and abnormal as always. His mouth still tacky, he returns to bed. 

Finding sleep has always been hard. He wonders if he’ll even be able to slip back into slumber, even with this transient unusual arousal. It had always been so difficult to shut off his brain, as it was always buzzing with his ideas, research, goals, roadblocks. 

Even after his success, it seems that it would never end. 

He was okay with that. His mind was on the future. He was on pins and needles waiting for his grant extension, even though it was practically guaranteed. 

Eventually, his thoughts fizzle out and he finds himself in dreams again. 

Bizarre dreams. 

There’s an uptick in the intensity this time. He moans into his pillow, palms at the sheets. He starts to rut against the bed, his muscles tensing. 

He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. Deep in his sleep, he feels so goddamn aroused, but it’s not about anyone or anything, it’s just pure _feeling_. 

_DAVE_. 

He awakes with a start again, with no recollection of the dream. 

He’s painfully hard this time. With heaving breaths he palms at his boxers, finding a distinct wet spot of precome on the front. 

What the fuck is happening to him? It’s like he’s a teenager again, holy shit. 

Touching himself feels so good. 

He’s so… he’s so turned on. Why is he so turned on? 

His back stings as he sits up in bed with a groan, his clock reading something around four am. Dave can’t lay down to do this, so he sits at the edge of his bed and shoves a hand in his underwear to pull out his erection. 

Still half asleep, he starts to stroke. 

His mouth is dry. The pit of fire in his stomach, the strongest point of his sourceless arousal, throbs painfully. He can’t shake how out of control he feels. He just needs to get it out of his system, sudden and urgent. 

Dave brings himself to orgasm quickly. His tired mind doesn’t focus on anything specific, it just happens. 

It’s odd, largely because Dave has never really done this before, at least not anytime recent that he could remember. He’d never been one to have a heavy sexy drive, which he felt had probably helped him in academia. Obviously not focusing on sex left him more time to work, that was an obvious answer.

Maybe it manifested instead as his desire to succeed. 

 

Rose had told him once that he was obsessed over finding the god. Dave had denied it. He wasn’t _obsessing_. 

He just wanted to be the first. 

 

He stares down at his dick, still rock hard and throbbing. Maybe after all those years of being focused on finding that damn temple and _Karkata_ it all was coming out. He blinks fuzzily and stands up, swallowing against his dry throat. 

He’s so thirsty. 

Returning to the bathroom, he wipes off his hands and boxers and draws another glass of water. He slams it down and waits for relief.

None comes. He’s still thirsty, but it doesn’t feel like a typical thirst. It’s like… he can’t put his finger on it. 

Thirst. Hunger. _Longing_. An ache for the unattainable. 

It’s the lateness of the hour that’s giving him these thoughts. It must be. 

His stinging back awakens him slightly. With a frown he fills another water cup, aware that he will wake up in another two hours and have to pee like crazy. Was thirst a side effect of tattoos? Man, he definitely did not do enough research on this whole process. 

 

He slips back into bed, making a mental note to look up tattoo side effects in the morning. 

 

He dreams of being weighed down while something whispers words in his ear that he can’t comprehend.


	2. Chapter 2

When he wakes up his muscles are sore and worn out as if he’d been writhing all night. He wishes he could go back to sleep, his body is covered in sweat and he’s so tired. 

That longing thirst is still there, dulled but present. At least he stopped being hard… eventually. 

Does he have the flu? If so, this is the weirdest goddamn flu he’s ever had. He researches post-tattoo symptoms over a cup of coffee on his phone. 

Yeah, okay. Being tired and fatigued and shaky and hot seem like typical symptoms after a long session. Maybe doing the whole thing in one day just took the shit out of him. He wonders for a second if he could allergic to the dye, but he’s never been prone to reactions like that. Plus he’s sure he’d be breaking out in hives too, right? Yeah it itches and it feels hot but like… it can’t be allergic reaction level. 

He keeps searching. Most of the advice is to eat some food, don’t touch it, and let the skin heal. Time is always the best medicine, apparently. 

Nothing seems to mention _sudden horniness_ though. Must be the endorphins or whatever. It just… Dave can fathom that it would be anything other than a fluke. 

_Or I just need to get laid_. 

Yeah, it’s probably that. His sex life leading up to his discovery had been drier than the Western Sahara.

Dave closes the search on his phone, that had really only concluded with porn links. He has other stuff he needs to focus on in the meantime. 

Like making a class syllabus, Christ. 

-

He thought it would get better. He thought that it would stop after that first night.

He never expected _this_.

Dave lies awake in bed, filled with a sourceless yearning. Sweat pricks at his brow even as he pushes off the sheets off his body.

What the hell is going on? 

He’s never felt like this. 

He wakes again with a dry mouth, roused from dreams that filled him with an inexplicable hunger. He finds himself rutting against the bed once more, trying to chase down those bizarre visions. 

It’s not any morning wood he’d ever experienced before. 

If must be a fever. Or a late presenting disease he picked up from Egypt. 

There’s just no other explanation for this. 

He has to give his first day of class tomorrow, and then he can go to the doctor. 

 

Focusing on building the class had been impossible.

Sleep, even more so. He had laid awake again as shudders ran through his body, head to toe. He shivered despite being on fire. 

He _wanted_. 

The heat in his stomach was alleviated by nothing- not the late night frantic masturbation session that he repeated again in the morning. Not the cold water. 

If this was a disease of some sort, it definitely came with a barrage of side effects he’d never experienced before. 

He really couldn’t afford to skip the first class, though. 

So he puts on compression shorts instead of underwear and forces himself on to campus, ignoring that eternal burn on his back. 

 

A maximum of fifty students are allowed enrollment in the Introduction to Egyptology class, and it is always full. This is Dave’s first year teaching it himself, after a few years of acting as sole TA. 

Being able to stand behind the computer podium while he walks through the syllabus is a relief. Even as those shivers run up and down his body, making his legs weak, he can hold himself up. But his voice continues to waver in reaction to the jolts of arousal hitting his gut. 

He is so thankful for these goddamn shorts.

“Sorry if I sound a little off, feeling a bit under the weather,” he lies at some point.

He sighs, looking at the whiteboard next to him. He was gonna have to step away from podium eventually. If only he’d had more time to prepare, he would have just made a powerpoint. 

Except… he did have enough time. The last few days had been consumed with this strange disease he’d been infected with, and he’d found himself unable to get much focused work done at all. 

He stumbles to the whiteboard at the front of the class and starts to draw out symbols. At least he’s facing away from them. The way his body is behaving isn’t anywhere near appropriate for working with students.

He gets through an alphabet combination before stopping, leaning one hand on the board as he exhales. 

All at once, the sensation is so strong. The skin of his back burns. He’s burning up.

He licks his lips and swallows before turning and going back to the podium. 

Fuck it. 

“You know what? It’s syllabus week. You guys have the rest of the day off. But uh, be ready to pick back up on Wednesday!” The students file out of the classroom while Dave stands at the front of the room, pretending to shift around papers. When he’s sure most of the commotion has faded away, he sneaks off to a bathroom. As soon as he can lock a stall, he pulls down the pants and compression shorts.

His dick comically springs out.

Dave stares down at it incredulously, unable to process why he wants to touch himself so badly, even more than when he was at home in bed. 

Holy shit he must have a fever. How did he let himself leave his place this morning? He’s in no state to be around people. 

Almost acting of its own accord, he wraps a hand around his dick, hissing through his teeth as he strokes once. 

Dave feels so out of control. 

Someone pushes open the bathroom door, shaking Dave out of his reverie. He inhales sharply and lets go, hurrying to put himself back together as best as he can.

Maybe he really did pick up some bizarre bug in Egypt? 

-

“Sorry for the wait. I just saw a nice young man who got his jollies during the prostate examination, believe it or not! Oh, wait, I’m not supposed to talk about my other patients, so my lawyer tells me. Soooo I hear you went to Egypt and came back feelin’ a little under the weather, is that right?” The doctor looks up from the thin folder at Dave.

Dave sits in his chair stiffly, trying not to give away the pressing issue in his pants. “Yeah, uh. That’s right.” 

They latch on to his withheld information almost immediately. “Is that what brings you in today? Not uh, any wrong with your little sir, there? You realize we are the men’s health wing.” 

“Okay, well, let me explain.” Dave blanches and holds out a hand, swallows nervously, before launching into the story. He was in Egypt for several months for his own research project. He came back, was home for a week or so, got a tattoo, and then he started to feel... weird. 

He leaves out some of the more telling details, even though he knows inevitable they’ll have to come up. The physician nods through his story thoughtfully. 

“So you’re worried about an allergic reaction? Alright we can take a look at that. I saw you didn’t write anything down on the paper for your symptoms. Are you having anything like cough, fever, penile discharge…?”

“No. Just. Fever. And I can’t sleep. And my back burns all the time. And I….” Oh god, he’s going to sound ridiculous. “I can’t stop getting hard.”

The attending pauses. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” 

Dave squirms as he says it again. “I’m constantly hard.” 

“Huh. Alright.” Dave notifiers their eyes drop down to his crotch and back up. “How many times a day? And for how long?”

“Like, all day? Until I rub one out?” 

“And does that help?” 

Dave’s face is furiously red. “I’m hard again in like fifteen minutes!” 

“Alright. And no other symptoms?” 

“No…. That’s it.”

“Nothing else?”

“Okay, okay, you got me. I wanna jerk it like all day long! I’m talkin like I played tug-o-war with myself for three hours and almost gave myself a blister!”

“Ah... hm...I see. Well, I’m glad you came in today. Men having an erection for longer than 4 hours should see their doctor. Also next time please read the Viagra label. Mind if I take a quick look at you?” The doctor gestures to the examination table. 

Dave pauses, not sure if he heard him correctly, but then decides he must have misheard. Too embarrassed to ask for clarification, he sighs and stands to follow his request. The paper on the table crunches under him. 

“They said I wasn’t running a fever,” Dave says shakily. 

“You aren’t! Looks like we have you down for a… ninety-eight point seven.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense, I’ve been sweating like _crazy_.” 

“Well, fevers aren’t the only cause of sweating...” They say thoughtfully, once-overing Dave with their eyes. 

“Are you sexually active?” They ask.

“... No,” Dave says in a whimper. 

“Yeah, I can tell,” they mutter under their breath. 

“What did you say?”

“Sorry, nothing, just clearing my throat.” 

As they go through the physical exam, Dave gets more and more mortified. 

He takes off his shirt and they examine the skin of his back. “I’m not seeing any inflammation or typical allergic reaction. The burning might just be the healing process.” Dave had supposed that too, but the pain just came and went so often with his never-ending boners he didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t dare say anything about it, he felt crazy enough being there as is. 

Dave’s not surprised when they ask him to take off his pants. He almost changes his mind and walks out as he unbuckles his them, but he stays because he knows something is wrong. Something has to be wrong.

He’s still hard. 

And that can’t be normal. 

It is so hard not to touch himself in front of this stranger. He’s pretty sure they would call for help if he did, so he locks his hands at his sides.

“See, uh. This can’t be normal.” _Or it’s just the start of a bad porno._

The internist looks down and blinks twice before pursing their lips. If that doesn’t spell judgement Dave doesn’t know what it is. Or they’re just suppressing a grin, but that doesn’t help either. 

They grab a wheeled stool and pull it over, getting way too close and comfortable with his dick, now floating directly at their eye level. As they near, Dave swears that burning warmth along the tattoo stirs, slowly increasing in intensity. 

Dave gives them permission to examine his naughty bits, looking up at the ceiling and thinking of England as they start. Anything to make the boner go down. 

As they reach out to touch his dick, moving it up to examine the other side with a gloved hand, he feels something like a strike of lightning hits his back. Dave yelps and jerks his hips out of their hand, almost striking the doctor’s face with his flopping erection. 

They clear their throat and frown. “Sir, I’m gonna need you to hold still while I do this exam.”

Dave flushes, melting under the embarrassment. “Sorry, wasn’t expecting it.” He sucks in a breath and makes a point to watch this time, hopeful that he won’t react so strongly if he’s watching and knows it’s coming.

They touch his erection again and he squeaks as the pain hits him again, starting in his back and radiating throughout his entire body. He whimpers and leans his hands back on the exam table, willing himself not to react. As they professionally examine his genitals the pain turns up to excruciating. It takes all his self control not to buck his hips again.

“Stop, stop, fuck please stop,” Dave begs in a gasp, unable to take it anymore.

As soon as their hands are off the pain abates. They look up at him with a mix of confusion and horror. 

Oh, god. They think he’s getting off on it. 

“Idon’tthinkIcandothis,” Dave says in a rush. 

That seems to relieve them. “That’s alright, being uncomfortable is more than normal!”

“Right…” Dave says, but pulls up his pants anyways. 

The doctor ends the encounter looking over his notes before putting them down and looking right at Dave. 

“Well, I think the solution is pretty simple. Lay off the Viagra, and start working on your porn addiction. I know it isn’t easy. We have a few brochures up front in case you need a full rehab program. I’ve heard good things!” 

They clap Dave on the back and leave before he can say anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a med student i challenged myself to write the worst doctor's encounter possible, please let me know if i succeeded


	3. Chapter 3

Dave finds himself in this bizarre schedule, awake nightly with hands fisted in his pillow as he bites down on it and tries not to yell. He’s not sure what’s worse- the arousal, or the constant desire for something he can’t put his finger on. 

So maybe he hadn’t picked up some strange bug in Egypt. Maybe it was a reaction to the tattoo. 

What was he supposed to do? Get it removed? 

He ends up looking at the tattoo removal process and almost jumps out of his seat when it says the process takes _months_ .

He can’t stand this for that long! 

But it looks like his only choice… 

If it doesn’t get better, he’ll go back to the doctor, and be more upfront with them so he can actually get to the bottom of this, then. 

 

-

Dave ends up calling sick into work for the next week. Which sucks, as he’d actually been looking forward to teaching his course, but he can’t now. Not when he’s chronically and uncontrollably aroused. He can’t stand up in front of a classroom and not sweat himself out. 

The sourceless longing weighs him down. He feels like he can never take a full breath, or like he’s constantly reaching for something just out of his grasp. 

 

Is there a word for this? 

What is it that he dreams of at night? When it feels like something, or someone, is pressing him down into his bed, shapeless and massive and heavy, behind the veil of sleep? It’s what is leaving him a breathless mess, panting into his pillow as he awakens with heat in his abdomen. 

 

Dave pulls himself together for the small egyptology conference. It was scheduled for two weekends following the start of his school year. He had hoped within that time he would at least have long enough to put a speech together on the symbol they brought from Egypt, but that _definitely_ didn’t end up working out. This was supposed to be his moment, his big discovery and reveal and big ‘fuck you’ to everyone there who had previously doubted him on his hunt. 

 

Now despite it all he stands at the podium and turns to smile at the chunk of rock displayed next to him, thankful for the suit mostly covering his excess of sweat. 

He opens his mouth to speak when the light applause dies down, and finds the words robbed from his mouth as he realizes something. Before, he’d thought it had just been nerves. Now it feels like his body is radiating energy-- towards-- 

He turns and faces the temple stone, his jaw dropping slightly in disbelief. As he sets his eyes on the symbol again, the energy surges within to a vibrating crescendo, becoming intensifying bass hum in his ears. 

It’s undeniable _presence_. It’s within him, surrounding him, drawing toward the lone block of excavated rock. 

‘Oh, shit,’ Dave thinks.

‘I need to go back.’

-

He cut his speech short and left the conference early. He went home and booked himself a one way ticket for the next flight to Cairo out of the international airport, and only then sent an email to his boss. 

“You’re going to get fired,” he’d been told the next morning at the airport over the phone. 

As soon as he had the thought, the thought that _he needed to go back_ , he couldn’t let it go. It was an inescapable truth, something he knew so deeply it was inscribed in his bones. 

_Or on his skin._

The absurd thought makes him laugh a little when it crosses his mind. 

He doesn’t know where he’s going, or why, just that he needs to. He needs to be back there. Just thinking it radiates rightness with him. But it’s just… it’s so ridiculous. The idea that any of this could be coming from his tattoo of all things. 

From the symbol. From the stone. From Egypt.

The _presence_. 

Dave knows he should still have clearance to the protected dig site, even though technically he might not have it for much longer if he gets fired, but it’s not like anyone is watching it twenty-four seven anyways. 

It’s only when he’s sitting on the plane, sweating next to his window seat, that he starts to wonder what will happen if he gets there and nothing changes. What if he doesn’t get better? What if he gets worse? 

Maybe he’s just completely lost it. Maybe he’s just bound to be some insane pervert for the rest of his life. 

He collapses forward, face in his hands. He rubs at his eyes tiredly and groans. 

When the cabin service comes around he orders a jack and coke. 

“You look like you need it,” the person sitting next to him comments. 

Dave scoffs but otherwise doesn’t respond. He leans into the window to look out at the horizon, hoping that going back won’t end up being the worst decision he’s ever made. 

-

Nighttime is falling, dusk blending into stars, as Dave kicks down the shitty wooden barrier separating the dig site from the adjacent surrounding city. He stalks out over the expanse of land. 

There’s no one around. No one would bother coming out here. 

He descends into the cave again, wondering if it’s as untouched as he had left it. He doesn’t have a torch, but he at least has his phone, dwindling charge as it is. He raises the flashlight to the stone wall that they’d uncovered when he finally finishes making his way down. 

“Okay, asshole,” Dave says out loud, not sure if to himself or to the strange energy he’d been surrounded with. “I’m _here_. What the fuck do you want with me?” He holds his arms out. 

Some sand behind him falls off the wall and onto the floor behind him. 

He sighs and kicks his foot, sending dirt flying on the ground.

This is crazy. This is fucking crazy. He’s totally lost it. He’s talking to an ancient _stone wall_ hoping a literal god will answer him. 

“You know because of you, I’ve lost my job, and my fucking mind…” _At least I still have my degree._ “... Alright. You know what? This is crazy. I’m crazy. I can’t do this.” 

He turns around and starts marching back out of the site.

As he breaches the surface again, it’s dark out. He clicks off the flashlight so as to not attract attention, but immediately stops when his eyes adjust in the dark around the entrance.

There’s a few figures are standing around. 

“We warned you,” one of them says in an accent. 

_Oh my fucking god._

-

“So what you’re telling me is that I pissed off a god and now I’m cursed, and also that you guys knew about and worshipped him this whole time?” Dave says, loud and incredulous to a few of those same people much later, over a beer at a restaurant they’d taken him to in one of the few quieter corners of Cairo. 

For being members of the modern-day cult of the deity, the mixed group of individuals seemed pretty normal, but Dave was still having a hard time with what he was being told. 

“Shh,” goes oldest one of their group. Dave thinks her name is Chahut, or was it Marsti? 

“Sorry,” Dave says, dropping his voice back down to slightly above a stage whisper. “But this is kind of a lot to take in, and frankly fucking insane. I’ve been studying this god for _years_ and your group never came up!” 

They look at each other before looking back at Dave. “We had to so that this wouldn’t happen.” 

“ _This_?” Dave hisses. “What is _this_? You mean what’s going on with me? You mean this fucking crazy feeling I’ve had ever since I left here? You mean me being unable to keep my hand out of my pants for weeks now? Is that what _this_ is? You have got to be fucking kidding me.” He slaps a hand on the table in frustration, hitting harder than he’d intended. 

The youngest one of the trio attending to him looks uncomfortable. “Mr…” 

“Strider,” Dave fills in for him. He shouldn’t use his _official_ title when he’s about two steps from _officially_ losing his mind. 

“Mr. Strider. We’re only here because we think we can help you.”

“You think you can….” He starts, about to go off again, but pauses when what they said actually settles in. “Wait, what?” He inhales once, watching them watch him. “Really?”

“...Yes.”

He chews his lip for a moment. “You guys honestly think whatever I’m going through is related to your god, huh?”

They all three nod. 

“And you think you can make it stop?”

Another round of nods. 

He sighs, leaning back in his chair and thumping a palm on the table. It’s not like things could get crazier. “Alright then. Tell me.”

They tell him.

 

 

_This is fucking crazy._

Dave laughs incredulously to himself that night in the shower of his speedily booked hotel room, in awe of the sheer ridiculousness he’d gotten himself into. He apparently needed to make sure he would be all clean before his… ritual. 

Because they want him to do a ritual tomorrow. 

A real, totally serious, freaky ass shit ritual. Complete with their priests of Karkata and all that business, anointing him with oils and something about a stone slab and oh of course the cliche _blood sacrifice_ that Dave almost curled over laughing about when they mentioned. 

Dave’s read about rituals. Egyptians had tons of them back in the day. Dave could wax academic speak for hours on the rituals they had. He spent years scrounging up every scrap of information that existed about Karkata, so he knew all about the temple practices and the god’s rituals. 

But never did he expect he’d see a real modern day analog of one, and that he would be the star of the show. The people he’d met with hadn’t exactly assuaged his concerns about the ordeal. In basic terms, they told him he would be presented to the god in their traditional fashion, and that if all went well he would be allowed ‘release’. 

Whatever that meant, it was definitely better than continuing on like this! So he agreed. 

Learning that he was going to be a part of some ritual hadn’t been the worst part. The worst part had been learning they’d had access to the very temple he’d spent years hoping to uncover. It was a long tunnel leading out to the underground sacred grounds that Dave had been very close to actually stumbling upon. Dave had been walked down there in what felt like a procession, and he wondered if he would ever be walked out of it. Everything felt so ominous. The people around him spoke in Arabic with hushed tones, which he couldn’t understand at all. He didn’t know any of them. They were all strangers, each one of them a secret follower of the ancient god. 

It feels like pure irony when he’s kneeling uncomfortably on the ground of that very temple, clothed in not much more than a robe and wondering how he let his life get to this point. There’s actual wood torches lit up around them to illuminate the buried space. He can make out ancient inscriptions on the wall, too far away for him to analyze. 

The answer to the question of what exactly they sacrificed here had been an obvious one. Blood. They sacrificed blood in here like they were running red cross donation drives. They drained so much blood here they could fund several hospital blood banks. 

It retrospect, it was a pretty obvious answer, considering he was dealing with the legit Egyptian god of blood. 

The priest starts chanting. The breath leaves Dave’s chest with pure nerves. He has no clue what’s about to happen, beyond the bare boned, tight lipped explanation he got the other night. They’d warned him that he might have to be naked for a bit. They warned him he would probably get cut into. 

Dave thought he was prepared. 

He was definitely not prepared. 

The priest is chanting, and a few people come forward slowly. One is carrying a ceramic jar filled with something he can’t determine. The other two are empty handed, but he quickly realizes their role. They’re going to take off the thin robe. He lets them enter his space, avoiding their eyes and trying to even his breathing as the front is untied and slipped down his shoulders, baring himself to the audience. Blood pounds in his ears with instant shame. 

He hears people gasp behind him as the tattoo is revealed. Wow, he really did step in their spiritual juju business, didn’t he? At least the temple is strangely warm, somehow keeping him comfortable despite the lack of clothing. 

The person carrying the jar tilts it over his back, pouring an oily substance onto it. He is oddly soothed by the action. It feels nice and smells good, like the night blooming lotus on the waterbanks. It’s warm. 

He finds that he actually feels pretty alright. He’s calm. The presence is closer now, and the hum within him is low, ambient noise. 

Someone comes forward and reaches down to take his hand. He lets them. He feels them rub something into it. After a moment his extremity starts to go numb, and he realizes it’s a topical anesthetic of some sort. 

They’re actually going to cut him. He expects himself to panic at the confirmation, but somehow he stays calm, just taking a deep, shuddering breath and staring down at the hand as it loses sensation. 

Dave doesn’t faint when the priest, still chanting, presents the knife to the crowd before bringing it down, cleanly and painlessly slicing the palmar aspect of his hand and tipping it so blood drips to the ground by his knees. His eyes follow as it falls, hitting the ground below and sinking in. Even in the dim lighting, it appears to disappear on contact into the ornate flooring, which he only then noticing is also fascinatingly patterned. 

He gets woozy watching the blood drain from his body. Someone comes up to steady him, careful not to touch his back. 

He realizes he’s being told to stand. He can’t. He can’t use his legs. Someone lifts him up, and he stumbles toward the raised platform with their help. He lays back without being told to, or maybe someone is, he barely knows anymore. 

The ceiling above him is ancient but he can still see those inscriptions, well cared for over time. 

He rests his head back onto the stone and closes his eyes, blinking away the images on the ceiling. His body is warm, so warm, and he feels safe. Somehow. The room full of people around him fades a little bit. 

That’s good. 

He feels... fine. Is his hand still bleeding out like that? He can’t even feel it.

He feels fine for all of one second before something latches onto his spine with an electric current. 

_Oh, fuck._

He he tries to sit up, escape the sensation pouring into him, and finds he can’t. His limbs are clamped down to the stone as if they were bound to it. 

No one has tied his wrists or his legs with anything. He’d remember that, he’s sure of it. He tries to move again as another kick hits him. It’s like being zapped with a taser, causing an uncomfortable chill with the radiating pain. 

Dave knows the people are watching him as he tries to fight against it. 

His mind blanks out as the presence suddenly weighs down on him, heavy and clearer than he’d ever known in his dreams. He feels it touching him, touching but not really touching, running down his body in waves. Already exhausted, he relaxes back into the stone, letting it overtake him. The pain stops instantly. 

He can’t fight it. He knows that. But he can’t help but gasp as he feels it sliding down, some waves hitting his groin. It’s different this time. Instead of beckoning arousal emitting from within, he realizes the entity is going to draw it out of him. It actually had subsided some while he’d been there in Egypt, but he knows it’s not going to stay that way for long. He feels it brushing along his neck, sensitive zones of his skin he’s not had anyone touch in a long while. He gasps and turns away from the stimulus despite how good it feels, simultaneously aware that _there is nothing there_. It’s too much at once, sending chills down his body and through his scalp. His back doesn’t hurt anymore. Nothing hurts. He’s numb to anything but the heavy press of the being on him and a dimmed but slowly escalating version of the arousal he’d become accustomed to. 

The pressure increases in consistency and moves lower on his body, curling over his legs and stomach. 

Finally it’s touching him along his dick, actually soft from this short period where the _issue_ has abated. Despite knowing that he is being watched by a room of people, Dave can’t fight against what he knows is going to happen. He tries to use his limbs again and finds them immobile as before. The unearthly, invisible pressure grazes the skin before pushing down and around him in firm determined strokes. 

It’s going to make him hard in front of this group of people. He knew he was going to be in a ritual, but had no fucking clue it was going to be of the freaky sex orgy kind! He gasps harshly and hisses as the entity continues to work at him, arousal surging. He can’t help it. He doesn’t know if he wants it and it’s just the pressure of the crowd’s eyes on him putting him off or what. Distantly, the people are chanting, filling the otherwise silent room. 

Dave can feel himself get even harder. 

When he’s completely hard with the stimulation, he realizes something. His dreams left him gasping; by comparison he can take in a full breath and it actually feels full. It’s intense relief, even as another tension begins to build. 

The entity continues to stroke him. It’s so much. It’s so good. It’s just like the dreams he knew he was having, but in full, vivid color. He can’t even begin to process that it’s real. 

It is real, it has to be, there’s no other explanation. 

He thinks that it, the touching, is going to be the end of it when it isn’t. The being doesn’t enter him, at least not in the way Dave had come to expect. It’s just a buzzing of energy inside him that he now realizes had always been there since this began, but it is suddenly so much more perceptible. 

It taps a small, undefinable point deep within his body, and if he had somatic control he would have jumped off the table. 

It’s too much. He wants to scream. It’s too much and it’s so good, and he knows that the being is inside him somehow, a phantom sensation of being filled. Because there’s no way anything is actually entering him, right? 

The internal point of energy taps that spot again and Dave moans, completely uninhibited. 

The presence feels stronger, now. Almost more palpable, or even physical. Like there is actually something there in the room. 

Finally, the energy presses on that point within and doesn’t stop. The presence starts the strokes again, and Dave is completely overtaken with pleasure. He didn’t think it was possible to feel this good. He’ll never feel this good again, like he’s about to come apart at the seams. He never wants it to stop but needs it to cease immediately. He’s caught in the middle, somewhere between ecstasy and insanity as the being fries his body and maybe a bit more of his mind. 

“ _Dave_.” 

The word, his name, fills his head like a voice speaking directly into it. 

The people are watching him, and the being keeps touching him. Oh god, all these frantic masturbation sessions he’s had over the last few weeks and none of them came close to feeling like this, this toe-curling, falling-from-a-plane sensation that is being forced upon him. 

He thinks that he’s going to come, and then he doesn’t. It’s holding him over the drop to take it all out of him. 

It keeps stroking away and he’s so hard and he needs the release, needs it so bad.

The entity has taken most of what it needs to. It drops him over that ledge and Dave comes with a cry, back arching up, dick spouting messily. It is absolutely the best orgasm of his life. It wracks through him, unrepentant in intensity. 

Pure relief immediately follows the release of all that pent up energy he’d been storing. Dave falls back to the table with heaving breaths. He closes his eyes and immediately begins to drift, head lolling to the side. 

Someone is stroking his head. 

" _Oh, Dave._ ”

Who’s talking to him? He can’t look to see, he’s so tired.

“ _Why did you keep running from me_?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what yall were expecting but i hope you like this!!!

Dave wakes up enveloped in clean, hotel-grade linen and becomes immediately aware of two things. 

One, he is completely naked, and two, he is laying on the steadily breathing bare chest of a stranger. 

His eyes blink open slowly. The skin of the person he’s laying on is dark and warm, far too comfortable. Dave could very easily keep playing asleep so he could stay there, or snuggle in further to this pleasant arrangement-- Wait. How did he get here again? What the hell kind of bender did he just come down from? He feels a bit too good to be coming off even a night of heavy drinking, seeing as he definitely doesn’t have the college student liver he used to have. 

He’s thirsty, but feels fine. Great, even. 

The stranger makes a small content noise and wraps one arm around Dave’s shoulders. Dave freezes, even as he tries not to react. Some of the memories hazily begin to set in, and for a few long seconds nothing makes sense. He recalls the phantom sensation of rock on his back, eyes on his body as he moans. In his stunned confusion he tilts his chin up to see the face at the top of the body he’s currently laying on, who he realizes is also entirely naked. 

None of the previous day’s events immediately line up in his head when his eyes take in the _undeniably handsome_ stranger’s face. Despite how comfortable he is, he knows that something is very wrong with this situation. 

Dave leaps out of the hotel bed, lamely trying to obscure his nether regions with a hand. 

“Who the fuck are you?” He rasps, his mouth and throat incredibly dry. 

The man had been reclining back on a pile of hotel pillows, reading what appears to be a cheap romance novel. He folds it closed and sets it on the bed calmly. Dave regrets not more elegantly slipping out of the covers, because the stranger’s bottom half is also entirely on display. 

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” the man says nonchalantly. 

“Yes, obviously, but that that doesn’t fucking answer my question!” Dave’s eyes dart around looking for his belongings, completely disoriented. 

The somehow familiar stranger sighs. “Dave, everything is fine, calm down.” He pats the side of the bed next to him. “Come here, sit with me.” 

Dave shakes his head and furiously glances around for his clothes, but pauses when he realizes he feels compelled to actually sit on the bed. “I don’t know who you are! Don’t… Don’t tell me what to do!” He snaps, eyes setting on an open dresser drawer which he lunges for. He gets one leg through a pair of boxers. 

“Dave, come here,” the stranger repeats. 

Dave’s legs go to jelly as the waistband snaps around his stomach. He stumbles against the dresser, one hand planting on it to hold him up. “Oh my god, what the—“ His breathing is starting to increase in pace, he’s starting to panic. 

The stranger stands, sighing, and firmly wraps a warm arm around Dave’s waist. He hauls him back to the bed and seats him back on the sheets. “There, that’s better.” 

Dave is now definitely panicking. His thoughts are disjointed, memories murky, as if the synapses in his brain aren’t making all the right connections. He knows he should be running away from this situation and the naked stranger, but Dave feels oddly at ease with him. As if he couldn’t get away, even if he tried.

“Breathe,” the stranger commands, resting a hand on Dave’s back. The pressure is welcome. His touch is more than agreeable, and feels bizarrely intimate. 

Dave breathes. In and out, slowly. His heart rate begins to calm down. The man smiles. “There. Better?”

Dave nods. “Yes,” he gasps. “But… But who are you? And how did I get here? What the fuck happened to me yesterday? I don’t remember anything.” That’s not entirely true. It’s starting to come back, but there is still a giant black hole in his memory as to how he got to this moment, with this person. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs at them. Why is he so at ease in the proximity of this complete stranger? Why isn’t he shrugging him away, along with his insistent but gentle commands? 

“I suppose I owe you a formal introduction.” The man gives him a small half smile. “People once called me _Karkata_ , though with your modern naming conventions ‘Karkat Vantas’ is probably a better fit.”

Dave laughs out loud. “ _Karkata_? Don’t be ridiculous, that’s the uh, the uh…” He sees the wry, knowing smile with a singular upticked eyebrow on _Karkat_ ’s face and stops mid sentence, his face slackening. “ _What the fuck_ ,” he breathes. 

The man, Karkat, still has that little smile. “I would like to formally apologize for the rude first meeting we had. You made things… particularly difficult for me.”

Dave is starting to panic again as the man continues to talk. 

“As one of the lesser deities, I require something akin to what you would call … a conduit? It’s been a really long time since I’ve walked the earth, and the energy needed for my return was extensive. It took a lot out of you,” Karkat continues on, as if he wasn’t dropping a bomb of information on Dave. “... Dave, _breathe_.” 

Dave bursts out laughing between his wheezes. “What the fuck are you talking about.”

“Well, I think you know, you just don’t want to admit it.”

“Admit what?”

Karkat gives him a doubtful look, and Dave is aware that he is still very very close to him and they are both rather unclothed.

“Admit what,” Dave repeats, a bit weakly, when he doesn’t respond.

“Dave, stop being so obstinate. I know you’re more intelligent than this, one of the things I…” Dave does not miss the way his breath catches. “Adore in you deeply.” 

_Too intimate, what the fuck_. 

“Alright! Fine!” Dave sucks in breath and launches himself to his feet again to pace the room, needing to put space between them and from the sudden emotionally charged atmosphere. “You’re trying to tell me,” he swallows. “That you’re _Karkata_ , the god I’ve been looking for for years?”

“Yes. Good job, by the way, you found me.”

Dave almost holds up a finger but keeps pacing, shaking his head with disbelief. “Not what I meant! Holy shit, this is insane. This can’t be real. You’re crazy. This is crazy.” He feels something again, that calming influence that had been exerted on him a few moments ago. “ _Stop that_!” Dave snaps. The calm recedes immediately, and Dave glances back at Karkat just in time to see his brows dip in concern. 

This is too crazy. Not possible. This guy must be deranged, and Dave’s lost it along with him. “Okay, okay. Let’s take a few steps back. Can you just… Can you just tell me how I got here last night.” 

Karkat shrugs. “My followers brought you back here.”

“Your followers.” 

“Yes. The people who facilitated our connection.”

Dave sputters at that. “Our— c-connection.” Karkat nods, confirming. Dave doesn’t believe him. “F-fine. What did they do? Carry me naked through the lobby?”

Karkat lifts his eyes to the ceiling, tilting his head side to side as he considers. 

“Oookay never mind please don’t answer that, I don’t think I want to know!” He pauses for a long moment as Karkat watches him from his seat on the side of the bed. Dave is thankful for the boxers, while Karkat appears as comfortable as could be in his nudity. It’s distracting. Why is it so distracting? Though again, deep down Dave knows… he’s just terrified to face it. 

“... Fine. Okay. So you’re a god or whatever. You’re welcome for bringing you back to earth. Now what does this have to do with me?” 

Karkat lifts a finger to the mirror behind Dave. “Everything.” Dave slowly turns his head over his shoulder, straining his eyes to look, and his eyes fall upon the tattoo covering his back again. An electric current runs through it. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand. I thought the ritual was supposed to fix that. The god was mad at me? I don’t even remember anymore.” 

Karkat laughs. “Mad at you? I was never mad at you, Dave. I could never be upset with you.” Why does he again sound so… fond. 

Dave keeps staring at his back. He’s sweating, even in the strong air conditioning of the hotel room. 

“Dave, look at me,” Karkat directs. Dave looks at him. “This is really unoriginal but I suppose it must be said. I am Karkata, god of blood, of passion, of bonds. And you, Dave Strider, are my conduit, the means with which I can exist and enact my will on this earthly plane.”

“Don’t be… that’s fucking crazy,” Dave starts to say, but sees the set expression on his face. “Fine then.” Karkat smirks. “Prooove iiit—“

A sensation hits Dave’s stomach as he stands there, a feeling similar to one he’d become acquainted with recently, but far more intense. It’s heated arousal, filling up his entire being and settling heavy in his insides. It twists and turns within him, making him want to shout and throw himself at that man on the bed. It’s by pure will that he keeps himself anchored to his spot on the floor, even as his body betrays him. 

“That’s passion,” the god says.

Dave wheezes, clutching at his stomach as it claws through him. “Oh my god, oh my god. It was you, wasn’t it? It was you the whole time. Holy shit this is so fucked.” He tries to turn and pace away but finds he can’t.

Karkat stands. Dave becomes aware of his blood red eyes, almost mirroring his own, filled with dark intensity. 

“I don’t get it,” Dave rasps as Karkat steps toward him. “Why me?”

Karkat sighs and comes to stand in front of Dave. Dave stays frozen as the god slides a hand to his cheek, cupping it. “Think about it. You felt it, in some way, ever since you were little. It was what drove you to find me. It was always there, wasn’t it?” It’s a rhetorical question, but Dave nods anyways, ever so slightly. He’s holding his breath in the closeness. “You kept looking for me and let nothing stop you. That was passion, Dave. You always had it, that passion I needed. I was waiting for you. I was _always_ waiting for you.” Karkat is decreasing the space between them ever so slowly, as he speaks. 

“I… I… I guess, but this is like, it’s a lot, okay? That’s kind of an earth-shattering thing to say to someone and this is just… a lot to take in. You’re a uh. Lot to take in.” The _god_ is so close to him. He has a small smile on his face, and Dave can only keep moving his mouth as he tries to process the static energy between them in the slowly reducing distance. “Like I’ve been in one hell of a funk ever since this all started. I have been feeling a lot of messed up things, you and I need to have a talk about that because that was not cool. Do you have any idea how much sleep I’ve lost because I couldn’t stop wanting to stroke my sausage at weird hours of the day.”

“You’ve been without me for too long. You were reacting to my power but unable to displace it from your body.” He’s just calmly stroking Dave’s cheek, expression sickeningly warm, and so near to him-- 

“What? That was? That shit was like torture. It was wanting for something I could never have that was just out of reach, like fucking Tantalus. I mean like talk about carrot and stick--”

“Erroneous Greek myths aside, how do you feel now, then?”

Dave pauses, his eyes flashing downwards as he takes stock of that feeling. It’s gone now. Well, maybe not gone, but different. There’s something else in its place.

He looks back up at the god and says it without hesitation. 

“Whole.”

Karkat takes ahold of Dave’s face and pulls him towards his mouth, kissing him.

Dave immediately sighs into it, half thinking that he’s completely out of practice, half thinking that this is the best kiss he’s ever had in his life, which isn’t much to compare on, but still, he didn’t realize kisses came with tingles running down his spine and his blood on fire and the impossible sensation of feeling totally and completely safe, and as he leaned into the kiss he realized he didn’t even need to think about it, it came naturally to kiss Karkat, almost like he was-- almost like he was--- 

_made for him_. 

Dave hesitates on reaching out to touch Karkat back, bring him closer, but then he’s near immediately hit with that stomach-jolting melty sensation that Karkat had filled him with before, and whether that came from within himself or from Karkat he doesn’t care, he reaches up and grabs for the god. He wraps an arm around his solid body and puts one in his hair, which feels rough and coarse under his fingers. As Karkat’s mouth moves against his in a way Dave can only describe as feeling _completely overjoyed_ , Dave lets his hands wander.

He hadn’t fully allowed his eyes to appreciate the god being completely in the nude with his shock earlier, but now he can’t hold back from his hands. The guy has a full on six pack, perfectly rounded deltoids, and probably has robust glutes to round it all off. This makes perfect sense to Dave, he’s the fucking god of passion, no wonder he’s built like a sex machine. 

Wait.

Wait wait wait wait wait.

It’s the inevitable question Dave has had on the tip of his tongue this entire time, but asking ‘Why have I been so horny this whole time?’ wasn’t exactly the most alluring or sexy question. He knew but he didn’t believe it.

Dave breaks away from the kiss, gasping for air. Karkat doesn’t let him get far, kissing down the stubble along his chin over to his neck. 

“This is-- oh fuck-- just where are we going with this?”

“Where do you think?” Karkat laugh-breathes into his neck as he sucks once under Dave’s ear, getting a strangled cry out of him. 

“L-Listen, you’re like, really hot, like a solid 10 out of 10, and I’ve never been with a guy, actually I haven’t been with anyone in a long time, kind of in a self-imposed dry spell, and this gut won’t just go away even if I stop having office hours--” 

“Dave,” Karkat says it almost sternly, shutting Dave off. “Don’t freak out, but you were made to please me.”

“Okay you see it’s kind of hard not to freak out after being told something that.” 

“... But you do know I am the god of passion, there’s a lot of energy I need to work out with that.”

Dave feels his face turning impossibly red. “But-- but you’ll get tired of me. I don’t even know what I’m doing right now. You’re like, fuck, you’re a god, I can’t be enough for you.” Why is he trying to talk Karkat out of it when he knows he wants this desperately? 

“I waited all these years for you, that’s not about to happen.” Even with his lips pressed against Dave’s neck, he sounds impossibly affectionate. 

Dave can’t breathe. There’s so much he was just told that he logically knows he needs to think through, like the entire issue of what exactly this new relationship is, but it’s being pushed back by the heavy arousal making everything else fuzzy.

Karkat pulls back up from the kisses along his neck to whisper in his ear. “I can tell you’re fighting it. Don’t. You don’t have to hold back with me, not anymore. Just breathe.” 

Dave doesn’t know if it’s a command or what, but his breath catches and he holds it for a long second before letting it out heavily, and with it he just lets go. 

The only thing that matters is touching Karkat, feeling him, feeling the body that was made to pound his guts out, and Dave goes mindless. He pulls Karkat to his mouth and hears him laugh throatily. 

He lets Karkat walk him to the bed, lets him pull off the boxers he’d frantically pulled on earlier that had been tenting this entire time, and what even was the point of that now? What was the point of Dave keeping any barrier between them? 

It had been hard for Dave to understand what that persistent, unquenchable longing was, but he knows what it is now. He’d been lusting for Karkat, and it had been all this aching, wanting, yearning he didn’t know how to deal with. It had all been for the god. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to sort out and understand all those thoughts and feelings and implications in the moment, though. 

Honestly, he’s pretty focused on the inhumanly large dick poking him in the abdomen. 

“Please,” he hears himself beg. “I need you so badly. I’ve needed you for so long you have no idea.” The words are just falling out of his mouth, little to no filter involved.

At some point Karkat kisses his forehead. “I know, oh Dave I know. I’m not going to keep you waiting anymore.” He sounds so loving, but raspy and aroused and it’s hot and no wonder Dave never was that crazy about anyone else over the years, not when he had _this_ waiting for him. 

Karkat pushes Dave back onto the bed, falling with him. Dave breaks away from his mouth for a split second of clarity. 

“I’ve never… I’ve never been with a guy. I know I kind of made an assumption with you fucking me but I guess it doesn’t have to be that. As long as there is some level of fucking I think I would be okay with that. Although I’m kind of getting the idea that that’s what you meant and if that wasn’t would you… tell me.” 

His answering laugh is soft and patient, warm breath on Dave’s cheek as he kisses it. “I don’t know, what do you want to happen?” He squeezes the hand he has interlocked with Dave’s. 

Dave makes a noise that sounds pathetically like a whimper and his hips jerk up slightly, meeting the solid body above him. “Okay, okay, fuck, you got me. Fuck me, please. I need it. I need you to fuck me.” He wants to feel it again, whatever happened during the ritual, if it’s even possible.

Karkat trails down and kisses his neck. “Turn over for me.” He pulls away for a second to let Dave do so, which he does eagerly, flipping onto his stomach. He’s never done this before but trusts Karkat to take care of him. There aren’t many rationally functioning parts of his brain anyway, not when he’s filled to the brim with need for the god.

“You’re perfect,” the god says, slipping a hand over Dave’s ass. He shudders below him at the sensation. 

Then Dave feels it, a building, very strange pressure, that builds and burns over the next few seconds. He pushes his forehead into the bed and groans. It happens more easily and feels way better than he thought it would. He wonders if this consistent yearning was just needing to be filled like this. By Karkat, specifically. 

This goes on for some time, and Dave just breathes with his eyes closed, finding that he’s just enjoying the feeling of Karkat’s fingers inside him. It’s weird, but he can’t help but think that he needs more. 

Finally he can feel them go deeper, and he yells as they hit that spot within, that same spot he felt being touched from the ritual. He writhes, curling in on the bed, nothing to hold him still this time. The pleasure of it is euphoric and electric, just like before. 

Are these just Karkat’s fingers? If that’s just his fingers how is his dick going to make him feel? 

He makes a noise of discontent when the sensation stops entirely and he feels empty, but he then realizes that Karkat is positioned behind him, centering his hips. 

“Are you-” the god starts to say, brushing a warm hand down Dave’s side. 

Dave interrupts him. “ _Just fucking do it._ ” 

Karkat sighs but it’s a contented one, then pushes himself in. Dave moans. It’s even more than before, but he can do it. He can handle this. Karkat thrusts into him a few times, settling into a comfortable pace before he lays himself down over Dave’s body, hooking an arm under one of Dave’s. He leans down and kisses at his neck, just moving his hips as he fucks him. Dave never knew getting fucked could feel this loving. 

Eventually, Dave has the words to ask it in gasping breaths. “How… fuck. How are you doing this? Don’t you need… oh fuck… don’t you need lube?”

Karkat just kisses his neck and sighs happily. “Made for me,” he murmurs.

Oh.

“Oh, fuck, Karkat, Karkat,” Dave cries as the meaning of that registers while Karkat keeps up the movement of his hips. 

The god he belongs to is fucking into his ass with no sign of stopping. Dave grabs handfuls of the bedding, and he feels so whole. He’s whole for the first time he can remember. Karkat feels so solid laying over his back, and he feels incredible fucking him like this. No wonder jacking himself off never felt like enough. 

He was _made_ for Karkat, and it’s like everything suddenly makes sense.


End file.
